


The Mercy Seat

by DevilPiglet



Series: A Nightingale Sang [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Torture, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilPiglet/pseuds/DevilPiglet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you come for Bucky,” Steve says, “I walk.”</p><p>Fury’s voice is very, very soft when he replies. “Watch yourself, Captain.”</p><p>“Keep the shield. Keep the costume, give it to the next guy you run up the flagpole. Bucky and I will disappear, find a beach on the other side of the globe and live out our days in <em>peace</em>.” There’s bitterness, there at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The holidays can be hard, can't they? Fanfic got me through them more than once. It's been a pleasure to write this series (and a different kind of pleasure to complete it). As always these can be read independently and contain no spoilers beyond 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'.

“If you come for Bucky,” Steve says, “I walk.”

Fury’s voice is very, very soft when he replies. “Watch yourself, Captain.”

“Keep the shield. Keep the costume, give it to the next guy you run up the flagpole. Bucky and I will disappear, find a beach on the other side of the globe and live out our days in _peace_.” There’s bitterness, there at the end.

He’s standing across the conference room’s cheap, particle-board table. Maria and Phil sit flanking Fury; the remnants of SHIELD have set up in an aggressively generic mid-rise office building on 45th and Lex. Hiding in plain sight had worked for Hydra, after all.

Natasha’s in a chair next to Steve, looking epically bored. She’s inspecting her stingers; experimental little _zap! zap!_ noises come from them every so often.

Maria knows just how well the Captain’s _autocratic demands_ and _bullheadedness about Barnes_ tend to go over, so she’s not surprised when Nick’s expression hardens. “Don’t test me, Captain.” Which is hilarious because Steve’s made a career out of testing Fury. Steve lives to test Fury. “Testing Fury” is Steve’s default factory setting.

“I hear Montenegro is nice this time of year.”

“Idle threats will not help your case.”

“Lots of coastline,” Steve continues evenly. “No extradition treaty.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“You can thank Bucky for that. He has more faith in these negotiations than I do. But make no mistake; we’ll leave tonight and not look back.” Steve’s positively dripping in righteous certitude. Maria likes him but _wow_ can he be an intractable bastard. He’d probably agree.

“Not looking back would certainly be a change for you.”

Everybody thinks Barnes is the most dangerous of the two, but Steve’s expression now sets Maria’s every instinct alight with warning. “I guess it’s a good thing I do,” he snarls. “Since we tend to _leave folks behind_.”

This is not getting them anywhere. Fury seems to realize this and changes tactics accordingly. “Think about it, son. Captain America on the run with a war criminal? You’ll be putting a global bounty on your head.” It falls flat; Fury can't quite get the hang of “avuncular.”

“Those were Hydra’s crimes, not his.” Steve says this with the conviction of a zealot. “And we’ll take on all comers, ‘til they stop coming.”

“What about your teammates?” A pointed silence settles, directed to Steve’s right.

Natasha looks up, blinks. “Oh, is it my turn to talk? The boys promised me I could be in charge, when they take their geriatric gun show on the road.”

“And the rest of them? They support this?” Nick is skeptical, maybe taunting. It’s all too easy to get a rise out of Steve, especially these days.

“They know how much I’ll do, for Bucky.” Steve’s chin is literally jutting out in defiance. God, Barnes must have had his hands full when the kid was a 98-pound weakling.

“Half the eastern seaboard knows that,” Fury bites out. “The damage estimates are still coming in from D.C.”

“This is about _a man’s life_ , not -”

“How is Sergeant Barnes?” Coulson’s deceptive mildness eases the tension, a little. And his concern is genuine; that’s obvious even to Steve.

“He’s good, sir.”

“Elaborate,” Nick snaps.

“He keeps every therapy appointment. He interacts with people, people who know what he’s been through. He’s got a _dog_.”

Nick rolls his eye. “Oh, in that case.”

“But for the record, we’d be having this conversation if he was still catatonic on the floor of my guest bedroom. The fact that Bucky came this far is a testament to his courage, his willpower. It has no bearing on whether I hand him over to you because _that will never happen_.”

Maria hopes Natasha does her Steve impression when they relate all this to Pepper at their next Vodka Vednesday. Natasha’s is the best.

“Save the theatrics, Captain. We have rules and protocol; Barnes won’t be summarily executed in the town square. But he’s got a lot to answer for.”

“So does SHIELD.”

“I told you before, I didn’t know -”

“And I chose to believe you, before. But I don’t believe that Bucky will be treated with the respect he deserves, if he’s in custody.” Natasha now appears to be playing cat’s cradle with a couple of garrotes. Posturing isn’t her style; she must still be mad at Fury. It does not do, to toy with Natasha Romanov’s emotions.

“We could have gone after Barnes anytime after SHIELD fell,” Maria reminds him. “Instead we let you take point.”

“Let me? It was a matter of priorities, nothing else. You were in triage mode while Bucky and I were sorting ourselves out and you were just fine with that.”

He’s not wrong. “Let’s split the difference and say that we were all fighting the good fight. Just not on the same front.” A muscle in Steve’s jaw ticks. “We’re not amateurs, Cap. We’re no more interested in exposing Barnes to Hydra than you are.”

“It’s not the people in this room I’m worried about.” Given the frostiness of this meeting that concession feels hard-won. Maybe it’s a reward, for Maria taking his threat seriously - more seriously than Fury does.

Steve will always be a soldier but there are battles everywhere, these days. Dropping out of sight? Difficult, but he and Barnes could manage. Especially with Stark’s help - and Maria knows Tony well enough to know that he would, out of spite for SHIELD if nothing else.

“This is all very nice,” Nick drawls, “but I’m not taking Barnes off the table without something in return.” And Maria detects a slight but sudden shift in Natasha, alertness kicked up a notch. So _that’s_ it: Natasha’s presence isn’t just muscle and moral support. She’s going to help Steve negotiate.

Rogers isn’t stupid - far from it. But he has tunnel vision where Barnes is concerned. Never was that more evident than on that last helicarrier, as Maria listened to Steve make his final play in a game that had gone on too long for him.

Despite Steve’s survival, the experience left her profoundly shaken. There was no way that the man she’d heard that day had dragged himself out of the Potomac. No, that had been Barnes. If Steve was blindsided when it came to him, Barnes had been blind to everything _but_ Steve - an abrupt beacon of light after decades spent in darkness.

They’re mad for each other, in every sense of the word. Steve would happily sign his life away to keep Barnes safe and Nick would happily let him. Natasha’s here to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Maria is unconflicted in her relief. Steve’s a good guy; fundamentally kind and fair. She’s a little ashamed, of how oblivious she and the rest of the agency were to his courteous grief in this modern age.

“Let's talk about back pay,” Natasha is saying, “and compound interest.” Fury winces. Maria settles in for the show.

***

In lives mostly absent of ritual, this one remains.

_I want to be clean_ , Bucky had thought when Steve first brought him home. And he’d bared himself, in every way, then. Even months later he can taste the dread and shame on his tongue, recall the primitive urge to hide his mangled body.

That had all passed away, beneath Steve’s ministrations. This is as much for Steve’s benefit as Bucky’s, now. That’s never more apparent than tonight - Steve returns from SHIELD triumphant but wrecked; he’s got neither the heart nor head for politics.

He mumbles as much to Bucky, who rises from the couch to meet Steve at the door, tip Steve’s chin down to examine his face closely. Steve leans against him, a welcome weight. “At least gimme your jacket before you swoon. Did you walk all the way from Midtown, you dumbass?”

“Had some, uh. Excess energy to burn off.” From Steve that translates to: _I’ve just spent five hours wanting to punch a wall._

“I bet.”

“Funniest thing,” Steve says, yawning around the words. “Natasha was waiting for me outside, when I got to SHIELD.”

“Is that so?”

“That is very much so. Told me she’d heard I was about to be impulsive and risky, and that I could use some company. Now where would she have heard a thing like that?”

“Oh, you know Tasha,” Bucky says vaguely.

“Not as well as I know you.” The attempt at sternness loses a little of its effect when Steve trips over Kevin.

“Hope not. Anyways, I wasn’t gonna let you give up everything just ‘cause Fury put a gun to my head.”

“I would have, though.”

Steve must be tired; even he usually conceals his self-sacrificing a bit better than this.

“I know, champ. Come on.” He leads Steve to the bathroom; a heady reversal of their first night together. Strips Steve and then himself, efficiency built into his bones during his years as a one-man war. Already the room is clouding with steam, turning less palatial and more muted by the effect. Steve has always seemed awed and a little disconcerted by the modern excess that surrounds him. But Bucky thinks he likes this vision of Steve, backlit by comfort and luxury.

For long moments they just stand beneath the spray, hot water plastering Steve’s hair to his face. Bucky combs the wet strands back from his eyes; Steve’s head bows under his touch.

It’s sacred, this time, and Bucky is coldly infuriated at even the most oblique threat of losing it. He wants to snap and growl and bare his teeth to anyone who’d try to steal Steve from him.

Instead he murmurs benedictions into Steve’s skin, _Never_ and _Mine_ and _Always_ , and Steve unbends a little more with every one. Steve drops his head to the ravaged skin at Bucky’s shoulder, nuzzles there. Bucky will never fully get used to this gentleness of touch.

Part of him will always be waiting for the blow.

He couldn’t bear the shower, at first, for reasons that sent Steve into one of his then-hourly silent rage spirals. He hadn’t been proud of them, Bucky suspected, but was caught in their throes regardless. While Bucky’s sleep is haunted by everything he endured -

Bucky wakes up begging, sometimes, _begging_ them not to put him back -

it’s Steve’s daily life in which the spectre of Bucky’s suffering looms, everpresent and accusatory.

So - these moments that ground them both. Steve can reassure himself again (and again and again) that Bucky is here, Bucky is real, Bucky is Bucky. Who in turn scours Steve for denial, disgust, whatever justification for Steve leaving him that he’s most recently conjured up. It’s a weird feedback loop they’re caught in, powered by the most desperate kind of love and loss.

Maybe it’ll pass. And if it doesn’t, Bucky’s lived with worse.

Far worse than this: their foreheads bent together, water sluicing over bodies made for the agenda of others. Steve turning, giving the Soldier his back - the trust staggers Bucky, every time. His thumbs and fingers digging into the always-knotted expanse before him: hunched shoulders; arch of spine; heaving ribcage.

Steve sways a little, turns so that his hands find purchase on Bucky’s hips. Bucky cuffs him lightly on the back of the head. “Out, before we both fall asleep in here.” Steve grumbles but complies.

Dressed and looking marginally human, Steve is happy to sit boneless on the couch while Bucky reheats Vietnamese. It’s been Steve’s personal mission to feed Bucky up so it’s nice to finally turn the tables on him.

Bucky unceremoniously sticks something shrimpy and aromatic in Steve’s face, then settles next to him with his own plate. “Oh, Kevin puked in your helmet again.”

Steve’s face is almost comically heartbroken. “Why does he _do_ that?”

“Because you keep leaving it out?” Bucky slants him a look. “That still gonna be a problem or are you hanging up the outfit for good?”

He waits patiently while Steve inhales about half his meal, then pauses for a breather. “You debrief with Maria and Phil at the Tower, no more than two hours a day or ten hours a week. Whether or not they’ve gotten what they want, after three months the sit-downs stop.”

“What else?”

“Surveillance.” And oh, Bucky can see how that rankles.

“How extensive?”

“Nothing inside our place. Nat says she’ll check for us on a regular basis.”

Bucky’s not as indignant over this as Steve is. “Can’t fault them, can you?”

“Yes,” Steve says, “over and over again.” Yet, Bucky knows, not as much as Steve faults himself.

“And then?”

“Assuming everyone survives, Fury wants to recruit you for SHIELD.” Bucky laughs.

“Does he remember how I tried to kill him? Twice?”

“You came closer than anyone else has. I think it was a selling point.” Bucky casts his gaze heavenward.

“How come we always gotta join up with the nuttiest team on the planet? It wasn’t enough we had a Frenchman who liked to blow shit up and a sergeant named ‘Dum-Dum’, Jones routing the Germans and correcting our grammar while he did it, no. It’s a new century, whole new set of crazy, nihilistic bastards.”

“Did you know Gabe was the fifth longest-serving senator,” Steve says, and then “We?”

Bucky wonders, idly, how long this guy has torn him between fondness and exasperation. Once he would have explained Steve’s boneheadedness to him in extreme detail, but -

That Steve thinks Bucky would _leave_ him out there, undefended and alone in heart if not body.

He has few words to offer. Words have made liars of everyone else, he sometimes thinks.

_“I know Stevie is your friend. But he won’t last the night, James.”_

_“War’s gotta end sometime, right?”_

_“So you see, the Captain died a hero! You - you will not be so lucky.”_

“...Whole point was to keep you from being someone else’s weapon,” Steve is proclaiming, getting worked up now, and Bucky doesn’t tell him: _Only yours. Only, ever yours._

What he says is: “Nah. Whole point was to stick together.”

The food is forgotten; Steve curls into him like a child again. "Yeah?" His voice is muffled, words pressed against the star at Bucky's shoulder. "Where're we going?"

Bucky closes his eyes. 

"The future."


	2. Chapter 2

**(The Story of Kevin)**   


The shelter volunteer is very sweet, shows them around with an enthusiasm that isn’t forced. Steve wants to adopt every animal he sees (although he’s not sure what he’d do with a pair of bonded ferrets) and as they reach the end of the last row they’ve seen plenty of likely candidates.

“...And this is Kevin!” Cayleigh chirps, but a strained note has crept into her voice. “He’s a long-term resident here at Brooklyn Buddies and he’s looking for a _very special forever home_. No kids - he hides from them; no cats - he hides from _them_ ; medication administered three times daily; limited activity because he’s twelve years old and arthritic -”

Kevin doesn’t lift his head to look at them, but does glare balefully in their general direction through the wire of his enclosure. Steve takes a reflexive step back. “What’s his breed?” he asks, for lack of any other commentary.

“Basset hound/borzoi, with some catahoula leopard thrown in.” Huh. That explains the...everything.

“We’ll take him,” Bucky says. Steve blinks.

“We will?”

“ _You will?_ ” Cayleigh parrots, dumbstruck.

“We will,” Bucky confirms. Cayleigh’s previous tension instantly transforms to unbridled glee.

“ _Ohmygoshyay!_ We were sure nobody would ever - um....never mind. Let me just get the paperwork together, and you guys can get to know each other while you wait!” She unlocks Kevin’s cage and leads him to the visiting area, Bucky and Steve following. The door shuts behind them, rather decisively.

Kevin lowers his unwieldy bulk to the floor, gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. Steve crouches down and tries to engage him, to no avail. Bucky, for his part, seems satisfied to sit across from this blobby animal and study him.

“This one?” Steve checks. It’s just that -

“This one.”

And Steve remembers himself, bloodied and grubby and possibly on the verge of tears, being plucked from the sidewalk after Bucky’d chased off a passel of other boys. Steve was seven, and they were younger than him by a year but already bigger, and embarrassment had made him snappish. Bucky looked past that, the shame and dirt and snot, and dragged him home. Just like he’s been doing ever since.

Cayleigh sends them off with a giddy wave and a promise-slash-threat to call as soon as their paperwork’s ready, and the two of them meander homeward.

It’s a good day, the best kind: Steve a bit bemused, but happily and Bucky, at his elbow, all self-satisfaction and effortless benevolence. Steve’s had a lot of days like this, is still awestruck that the future holds more.

At Owl’s Head Park, skate ramps have been added but Bucky can still trace the monogram that adorns the gate. There is an inexplicable rightness in the vision of metal-on-metal; Bucky’s gleaming fingers against weathered iron.

They’re sitting on a bench, people-watching (more people-scrutinizing in Bucky’s case) when Natasha appears from what Steve would swear is out of thin air. He yelps and almost drops the hot dog he’s holding; Bucky catches it.

“I brought you something!” Natasha says brightly.

“You’re back in town,” Steve squeaks.

In response she thrusts a large paper shopping bag, labeled _The Pampered Pet Emporium_ , at them. Oh, God. Is this from a sex shop? Stark once tried to get him to go someplace with a name like that and it was a sex shop.

Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve, probably hearing the unspoken question. He takes the bag from Natasha and places it on the bench between them, scooting over so that Natasha can take her customary perch. She waves him off. “Open it!”

Steve does. Inside he finds:

a bag of “artisan pre-mix grain-free” dog food  
a suede collar with _KEVIN_ embossed in gold  
a leather leash  
a porcelain-encased stainless steel bowl  
a little pink hat and raincoat  
and at least a dozen chew toys.

Aside from the collar and leash it all looks pretty PG. “We left the shelter an hour ago.”

“I stopped for gelato first.”

And Steve is excruciatingly, unutterably touched. Made stupid with it, really. It must show on his face because Natasha blushes like a pinup before she remembers herself. She takes a step back and then narrows her eyes, assessing Steve and Bucky with rising displeasure.

“What?”Steve asks, as Bucky holds up a crocheted doggie sweater reading _I ♥ NY_.

“This? This is your idea of a disguise? This is how you go undercover? At least I found you some glasses!”

He and Bucky both frown. They’re wearing baseball caps and have the collars of their jackets turned up. They’re _totally incognito_ and Steve tells her so. Natasha looks deeply pained.

She won’t stay, says only that Clint has a tendency to antagonize armed Russians. Steve doesn’t really understand, isn’t sure he’s supposed to so they wave her off. She knows where to find them if she needs them (she will not need them).

“She meant you,” Steve tells Bucky, staring pointedly. In response Bucky merely settles his Cubs hat more securely on his head.

“Guess I’m just a sucker for an underdog,” he says, around his last mouthful of Steve’s lunch.

Steve closes his eyes, tips his head back. The air is crisp but Bucky is a warm length against him, shoulder to knee. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you always were.”

***

Stark texts seven times in one morning, starting at 4:18 a.m.; Pepper calls once at ten. Bucky picks up immediately. “I have a little welcome-home gift for you. My schedule’s a bit tight today but could you do lunch at the tower?”

Bucky’s never been there before, but he gets the feeling it’s not Steve’s favorite place so it works out that Captain America is visiting the pediatric ward at Sloan-Kettering today. Stark greets him in the lobby of the Avengers’ common floor. “I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Bucky! How’s the patch job holding up?”

“Performance is much improved. Thank you.” Bucky had removed the tracker in his arm, with extreme prejudice, after the fall of the helicarriers. Stark has undone nearly all of the damage, although Bucky suspects he got more out of it than Bucky did.

Stark is a man discomfited by gratitude; he waves Bucky off. “Pep should be right down; she’s caught on a conference call to Pyongyang. I gotta bounce - Bruce says I’m not allowed to leave lasers unattended in the lab anymore. Heard about the latest addition; give this to the Cap?” He hands Bucky a book on gay parenting.

Stark is loud, callous, borderline manic; he’s the kind of man to whom Steve would have taken an instant dislike back in the day. His father had more social graces, and fewer scruples. War taught Howard it was better to ask forgiveness than permission and that was perhaps a dangerous lesson for a man who made weapons.

Bucky knows that HYDRA had Tony’s parents killed. Bucky does not know if he’s the one who did it. Tony knows, and isn’t saying.

But he outfitted an entire floor for Bucky and Steve’s use, and he is boastful and obnoxious but never disgusted around Bucky, and he once told Bucky, quiet and rough: "I _had_ a choice. I made the wrong one."

Once he’s gone Bucky paces. It’s a good way to map a place out - could nearly be considered a habit of the Soldier’s, and those were few and far between. Moments of pure reconnaissance are valuable, help keep Bucky’s mind occupied when he’d otherwise be anxious and hypervigilant. The security features alone here would take weeks to contravene, a fact which vaguely pleases him.

As if on cue, one of those security features introduces itself. “Good afternoon, Sergeant. I am JARVIS, an advanced computer system that resides within the Tower. Welcome, and please inform me if I may be of any assistance.”

“An AI?”

If he doesn’t know better he’d detect a note of pride in JARVIS’s response. “Precisely. Some people are uncomfortable with my presence; if that is the case -”

“No. I mean - it’s fine. I was a machine once, too.”

There is a pause before JARVIS speaks again. “You have suffered greatly, Sergeant Barnes, and your perseverance is admirable. Ms. Potts, Mr. Stark, and I all hope we can your transition to what must be very novel circumstances.”

“I hope so, too. Your guy - he fixed up my arm.”

“Sir is exceptionally talented.”

“Yeah.” Bucky sits down on the nearest overstuffed armchair, scuffs a toe against the too-plush carpeting. “I would have made a good mechanic, once. I remember my boss at the garage telling me that. I was only hired to sweep the floors but he’d make me sit and watch the other men repair cars.” He's rambling.

“You are not a car, Sergeant.”

“No. A lot more likely to break down.”

“Sir requested that I review the Winter Soldier files, when they were released. He feared he may overlook some crucial detail - rather, that’s what he told me. If I am being entirely honest, I suspect he wanted my - that is, an objective - assessment of the data.”

“And?”

“Sergeant Barnes - even if you were in name responsible for every heinous act therein described -”

Bucky braces himself.

“You shoulder no blame.”

A full minute while Bucky clenches locks of his own hair, rocks to and fro, sobs soundlessly. “Is that a pun?”

What erupts is entirely digital but unmistakeable nonetheless. A laugh. “That was not my intention, but.”

“JARVIS.”

“Sergeant.”

“It’d be nice, to have a friend I couldn’t kill.”

Emotions still take him by surprise but he's gotten his shit together by the time the subtle whoosh of elevator doors signals the arrival of Pepper Potts. And that Stark would allow Bucky to be alone in her presence - it’s _bizarre_ , the consideration he has been offered at every turn. That, as much as anything else, keeps Bucky off-kilter and fumbling.

Bucky stands when she appears and she greets him warmly. They’ve met before; she’s not a stranger but he can’t imagine why she’s summoned him here in the middle of what must be a typically busy day. She leads him over to the little galley kitchen and in the midst of scarfing down a reuben with really admirable fervor, she hands him a folder. Bucky hastily finishes chewing his own sandwich.

“Ma’am?”

“It's nothing fancy; I tend toward the practical. You have a long and full life ahead of you, and I wanted to make sure you could get started on it right away.” He stares at her in a way he distantly knows to be impolite. “Here’s all the documentation you need to officially exist, in 2015.”

Bucky frowns, examines the file. “This is...me?”

“Legally, verifiably, bureaucratically you. I included a library card and memberships to the Botanical Gardens, Lincoln Center, Historical Society, the Met and - well, you’ll see.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” He keeps his cowardly gaze averted by sifting through the IDs and other items. “You’re a very important person. CEO, Stark Industries. Chairperson, New York Homeless To Housing. Chairperson, Bronx Youth Art Council. Founder and Chairperson, Harlem-Manhattan Infrastructure Relief Fund. Two days ago you spoke in front of Congress on increasing the United States’ refugee intake -” He breaks off, abject and mortified. It is still his manner, to speak in mission reports.

Pepper doesn’t look put off, just pleased. “I am pretty important, aren’t I? But JARVIS and I love a challenge.”

“Thank you.” What inadequate words. How ill-equipped he is to repay this largesse.

“It was truly a pleasure.” She returns to her meal and seems content to eat with him in silence until something on her person makes a buzzing noise. Grimacing: “I’ve got to run. Will you and Steve join us for dinner on Saturday? I’ve made Tony promise no soldering at the table.”

“Yes. Yes, that would be good. Dinner.”

“It’s decided, then.” She winks at him, drops her dishes in the sink and bustles off.

He goes home. He walks Kevin. When Steve returns Bucky hands him the folder and Steve whistles as he looks through it. “Takes a lot of ink to be an American,” Bucky observes.

“Too much.” Steve hands the folder back to him. He’s a little raw, the way he always is after seeing kids in pain. So they spend the afternoon listening to music - Mahalia, lately, and the Staples Singers - and Steve helps him look up charities Bucky can send his freshly-printed checks.

But when he studies the wealth at his fingertips, he sees only Steve.

***

Kevin is a jerk.

Kevin doesn’t deign to sit up, much less greet Steve when he comes through the door. Kevin is noxiously flatulent. Kevin exudes what seems to be, if Steve were forced to describe it, a visible if lethargic malaise. Kevin doesn’t bark at potential intruders, but does howl when they run the dishwasher. Kevin routinely eats coffee grounds, then spends the next six hours growling at the wall. Kevin does not cuddle, and he is indifferent to petting. Kevin is an _asshole_.

Steve had, when he fantasized about having a pet (which he’d done on maybe a too-frequent basis) pictured something fluffy in both body and spirit; a loyal companion whose presence would ground Steve and comfort Bucky, who’d smother them with easy affection and sloppily but devotedly lick away their tears.

Kevin chews the straps off Steve’s shield.

“You are the worst dog to ever dog,” Steve tells him, trying - and failing - to repair the damage. Where he is splayed out on the floor, Kevin shifts laboriously so that his back end is facing Steve.

“But we’re keeping you,” Bucky adds. He’s watching Steve as he does.

“Yep, we are.”

***

Bucky spends long, silent hours with Kevin, at least whenever Kevin condescends to be in the same room as him. And he looks at this - this defective creature, this _error_ of an animal that offers them precisely nothing and does even less to endear them to him; this morose, expensive doorstop that has changed not a whit since they first brought him home. Kevin hasn’t gotten nicer, or smarter, or _better_ at all.

“That’s okay,” Bucky tells him. “It’s okay.”

Steve sleeps with his door open, and Bucky likes to sit beside his bed some nights. Likes to listen to Steve’s deep, even breath. It doesn’t hitch or skip or sputter to a halt _(not anymore)_ \- even as those serum-senses detect Bucky’s presence and Steve grunts, flails out a hand to alight on Bucky’s head. 

Steve lies untroubled by his would-be murderer; Steve rests easy at Bucky’s side.

“How many ways can you love someone?”

He whispers it into Steve’s skin - the flesh that sunrise has burnished gold, the flesh that has already absolved so many of Bucky’s sins.

“All kinds of ways, Buck.”

“I’m different.”

“We both are. Not more or less, just different. And it’s a different world, besides.”

Bucky retrieves Steve’s hand in both of his, presses his lips to it as he had that first night - helpless to stop himself, undone by Steve’s thoughtless grace.

He waits for Steve to fall back asleep, or try to tug him up to share the bed. Instead Steve shucks off the thin covers and slides to the floor beside Bucky. And now they are both crouched in a corner, in the dark. Bucky thinks _I drag you down, and down, and down._

“What if I can’t, anymore? What if they burned it out of me?”

“You can. You do. When you patrol the apartment after I’m asleep. When you walk, puttin’ yourself between me and everybody else. At the emergency vet with Kevin, and at Peggy’s side in hospice.” Steve carefully, carefully, draws Bucky’s head down to rest on his shoulder, brushes the softest kiss to the pulse that for so long only beat with violence and savagery. “On the banks of the Potomac and at our front door.” Bucky will never forget, the first time he crossed that threshold.

“There are so many ways to love, Bucky, and you show me new ones everyday.”

“My hands - are clumsy. My grip is rough.”

Steve takes them in his own. “You won’t break me with them, Buck. You save me from drowning.” He isn’t talking about the river, Bucky thinks.

They never knew, how the first meeting of lips and tongues would feel like reunion.

_(“Were we like this then?” Bucky asked. “Is it something I’m missing?”_

_“No. Before was...before,” Steve answered, as honestly as he knew how. “You had girls lined up around the block, never took no notice of men. And I…” Steve smiled; he could, at this old hurt. “I woulda loved to have girls lined up, too. I didn’t. And if I looked at you, every once in a blue moon...it felt like just another way my body betrayed me, or one more thing to ask of you.”_

_“And then there was Peg.”_

_“And then there was Peg,” Steve agreed. Bucky’s gaze went a little dreamy, and because time was forgiving Steve laughed. “You made a pass; do you remember?”_

_Bucky stiffened. “I didn’t - she was your best girl -”_

_“It’s all right. It was clumsy, not up to your usual standards. Your heart wasn’t in it.” Steve sobered. “I should have known, then. I should have known since the moment I dragged you out of that base, you were a fucking mess and all I could see was my best friend and not his pain -”)_

Some part of Steve will always be caught in that regret - of buying Bucky’s act after Zola, of limping alone out of a blasted-out train car. It’s a smaller part, though, than maybe it used to be.

Beside Bucky, _around_ him, Steve gasps. And there is no regret in that sound, none at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed - [DevilPiglet](http://devilpiglet.tumblr.com).


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